Cuban doctors reported held in Zimbabwe

Two Cuban doctors who were sent to Zimbabwe by the Havana government as part of a medical team, are reported to be under arrest after trying to defect.

The doctors Leonel Cordova Rodriguez and Noris Pena Martinez had applied to the Canadian embassy in Harare for political asylum.

But diplomats contacted by Reuter's news agency say police detained the men and deported them to South Africa.

There, airline officials refused to take them further after the doctors alleged they had been kidnapped by Zimbabwean officers working with Cuban diplomats.

The South African authorities sent them back to Zimbabwe.

Officials from the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, are now calling on the Zimbabwean authorities not to deport them again and to respect proper asylum procedures.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service